Gray Redemption (Tom Gray #3) (10 page)

“I know it’s risky, but the
alternative doesn’t guarantee results, either.”

Plan B was to gain control of a
television news studio and tell the world what James Farrar had been up to on
behalf of the government.  However, they would eventually have to hand
themselves in, and they couldn’t be sure they would be allowed to see the light
of day again.

The others agreed with him, and
so they spent the next few hours developing Gray’s favoured option, suggesting
and dismissing ideas until they had what they thought was a workable solution
to their problems.

“It all hinges on you convincing
your man to help us,” Smart pointed out.  “Fail to do that and we fall at
the first hurdle.”

Gray was well aware that the
initial plea for help was crucial to their success.  If he couldn’t pull
it off, there would be no option but to revert to the back-up plan.  “Then
I’d best be at my most persuasive,” he said, determination in his eyes.

Chapter
6

Thursday
May 3rd 2012

Ben Palmer crept through the
darkness towards the chain link fence surrounding the Wenban Freight Management
compound, even though he knew there was no camera coverage to record his
approach. 

His initial recce the previous
day — a drive-by followed by a walk-past — had revealed just three CCTV cameras
covering the vehicle park, all static.  Negotiating them wouldn’t be a
challenge, but he had no idea what kind of security they had in place to
protect the main office building.  To get to the office, he first had to
get through the fence.  It wasn’t particularly high but was topped with
razor wire, so going through seemed the most prudent option.

A quick look around showed no
sign of life, either from the tyre yard thirty yards to his left or the
warehouse on the other side of the road, which looked like it had long been
abandoned.

He pulled a pair of cutters from
his jacket and began snipping away at the wire next to a supporting post,
starting at the bottom of the fence and working his way upwards until he had
created a twelve-inch gap.  He put the cutters aside and pulled the broken
part of the fence towards him so that he could squeeze underneath.  He
stopped when he heard a sound close by, and strained to detect the direction it
had come from.  A glance to either side showed no signs of movement, but
he waited a couple of minutes, just to be sure. 

The compound was quite a
distance from the nearest populated town, so he assumed the noise was probably
some kind of nocturnal animal scratching around for food.  He turned his
attention back to the fence and was beginning to roll it upwards when a hundred
and seventy pounds of Boerboel came bounding towards the fence, barking for all
it was worth.  Palmer barely had time to roll the fence back into place
before the guard dog began clawing at his fingers, shredding the skin and
destroying his surgical gloves.

Palmer fell on his backside and
used his feet to prevent the dog from crawling through the gap he’d created, at
the same time reaching for his Taser.  By this time, the hound had managed
to get its head through the small gap and was attacking Palmer’s feet, though the
thick rubber soles of his boots prevented any serious injury.  The animal
still came at him, inching through the
hole
while
snapping and snarling, saliva dripping from its mouth.

Palmer finally managed to get
the Taser free and fired into the dog’s shoulder, delivering a charge which at
first appeared to have no effect but which eventually brought it to the
ground.  He kept his finger on the trigger while he extracted a syringe,
and he cut the charge just before he stabbed it into the back of the dog’s neck
with shaking hands.

With the animal incapacitated,
he lay on the ground to catch his breath, wondering where the hell it had come
from.  He’d looked for a kennel during his earlier observations but there
had been nothing whatsoever to point to a guard dog patrolling the
compound.  The manager must have kept it inside during the day, probably
to stop it attacking the staff, judging by its demeanour. 

Palmer decided to keep the Taser
handy, just in case there were any more surprises.  He also had to get the
dog back inside the compound so that his little visit went unnoticed.  He
moved the animal aside and crawled through the gap he’d made, and it took some
considerable effort to pull the mutt through after him. 
He
eventually got it clear of the hole and dragged it behind a stack of pallets,
then used his feet to obliterate the trail leading to his entry point.

With the dog hidden, Palmer
wiped the sweat from his face and neck, and then pulled out his lock-picking
tools.  The main office was bathed in darkness and he stepped carefully,
listening intently for the slightest sound that could indicate another dog, or
even a night watchman, though the latter seemed unlikely given the amount of
barking the dog had done.

He reached the door and found
that his first hurdle was a padlock which secured a deadbolt just above the
door handle.  It took less than fifteen seconds to defeat it, and another
thirty to open the Yale lock.  He eased the door open gently, looking for
any sign of an alarm but finding none.

Once inside the wooden structure
he found a couple of untidy desks, both with computers at least a dozen years
old.  He ignored those, instead looking for hard copies of movement
schedules.  He found these in the single filing cabinet, and using a small
torch with a green filter over the glass to diffuse the beam he flicked through
the records searching for anything relating to the seventh of May.  He was
thankful that the operation was small, with less than a dozen vehicles, which
meant he was able to find what he was looking for within a minute.

There were just seven entries
for the coming Monday, and two of them were pickups for Arnold Tang’s
company.  His little chat with Tang’s lieutenant hadn’t revealed the fact
that there would be more than one consignment arriving, which left Palmer
having to decide which container his targets were likely to be in.  The
first one was a standard forty-foot high-cube container with a declared gross
weight of forty-five thousand pounds, while the second was half the size and
lighter by around seventy percent. 

Palmer knew that his targets
were just four of twenty people making the journey to the UK, so he discounted
the smaller container and checked the details of the other one.  It was
due to be offloaded just before seven in the evening, with delivery to an
import/export company the following morning.  This suggested that the
container would be parked up overnight, most probably within the compound.

After taking snaps of both
records with a compact digital camera, he carefully placed all of the documents
back in their respective folders and closed the cabinet, wiping down any
surfaces he had touched.  At the door he did the same before closing it
quietly and re-attaching the padlock.  The dog was still where he had left
it, and he was pleased to see that it was still breathing; the last thing he
needed was a dead dog broadcasting his incursion.

At the fence he smoothed out the
soil around the gap and pulled a pallet up to the post before squeezing through
the hole.  He then moved the pallet over the hole to prevent the dog from
scratching around and bringing it to anyone’s attention.  He then used
small lengths of wire to fasten the fence back to the post as best he
could.  It wasn’t a permanent solution, but if it prevented detection for
just a few days it would serve its purpose.

He made his way back to the main
road and waited until there was no traffic in sight before sprinting to the
main entrance, where he quickly checked the condition of the security.  A
large, rust-free chain and combination lock secured the two metal gates, and he
made a mental note to add industrial-strength bolt cutters to his ever-growing
shopping list. 

Palmer ran back to his car,
which he’d parked behind the tyre yard, then drove back into town, stopping off
at a bar to grab a beer.  He stayed there for just ten minutes, and once
he reached his hotel he made a point of getting close enough to the
receptionist that she could smell his breath as he asked for a morning wake-up
call.  This helped keep up the pretence of the travelling salesman out
enjoying the local nightlife.

When he got to his room, he
booted his laptop and logged into his proxy server before searching his contact
list for the number of an old friend.  He called using an unregistered
pre-paid phone he’d bought earlier in the day.

“Sean,” he said when the
connection was made.  “It’s Ben.  I was in town and thought I’d look
you up.”

“Hey, it’s good to hear your
voice, man.”

They chewed the fat for a couple
of minutes before Palmer explained that he needed to do some shopping while he
was in town.

“No problem,” Sean said. 
“I’m having a
braai
this weekend.  Wanna
join me?”

“Just like old times. 
Sure, sounds great.”

They arranged to meet at the
farm just after midday on Saturday and Palmer ended the call.  He spent
the next thirty minutes finding a van rental company with a vehicle large
enough for his purposes before turning the lights out and grabbing some sleep.

*
* *

Andrew Harvey’s KLM flight
touched down just after nine-thirty in the evening, and an hour later he was
met in the arrivals lounge by a man wearing a suit despite the temperature
being close to eighty Fahrenheit.

Dennis Owen was in his early
thirties and had the bearing of a man who did more in life than simply offer
advice on trade and industry matters.  His hidden remit was to get
detailed background information on companies looking to invest in the UK in
order to ensure there were no skeletons in closets that might embarrass the country. 
The last thing the government needed was a repeat of the Quatromain fiasco a
few years earlier.  It transpired that the money men behind that
corporation were subsequently prosecuted for drug-trafficking, which was a
particular embarrassment for the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation
and Skills, who had personally signed off the deal.

Owen offered Harvey a confident
handshake.  “Welcome to South Africa.”

“Thanks,” Harvey said, stifling
a yawn.  The twenty hour journey had taken a lot out of him, despite
managing to grab some sleep on the flight following the two-hour stopover in
Amsterdam’s
Schiphol airport. 
“Did you have any luck with the seven names I sent you?”

“I’ve got a friend in the local
police force and he did some checking, but none of them have any records here
at all,” Owen said, as he led Harvey out of the airport terminal in direction
of the car park.  He stopped at a BMW saloon and once inside he handed a
printed sheet to Harvey.  “These are the supposed itineraries of your
suspects.  I also got the name of the haulage company collecting the
containers you’re interested in.  They’re a small firm called Wenban
Freight Management.”

Hamad Farsi’s efforts had paid
off.
 
He’d made the connection between
Timmy Hughes and Arnold Tang, which in turn led to the discovery that one of
Tang’s companies had two consignments on the
Huang Zhen
.  They
hadn’t yet been able to get into the Durban Port Authority computers to find
out who was collecting the containers, which was why they’d asked Owen to get
the information.
 
While they now knew who
would be collecting the consignments, they still had no idea where they were
going to be dropped off.

“What about the company?” 
Harvey asked. 
“Any ties to Arnold Tang?”

“None that we
could find.
  It looks like your typical small business. 
They’ve been in operation for six years and grown from a couple of vehicles to
ten during that time.  Tax records and company accounts suggest this
expansion has been financed using their own capital, and their income is consistent
with a haulage company of that size.”

“That’s good.  They should
have no problems co-operating with us.”

“You’d think so, but we spoke to
them this afternoon and the owner is reluctant to give us any information about
his customers without a warrant.”

“Fine, so get one,” Harvey said.

“Not so easy,” Owen told
him.  “I asked my friend but he said the police will want documented
evidence before they apply to the courts.  We might have better luck with
customs, though.  If we let them know the container might contain illegal
immigrants, they could check it at the port.”

Harvey thought about it, but
soon dismissed the idea.  “If we do that, we lose whoever’s here to meet
them,” he said.  If he was going to play his part in disrupting Farrar’s
plans, he wanted concrete evidence of his involvement in any wrongdoing, and
having the person or persons sent to carry out the kill order would be a good
start.

It was forty-five minutes later
when they arrived at the hotel and Owen dropped Harvey off outside.

“I’ll be back for you at seven
in the morning,
then
I’ll drive you down to
Durban.  Your room is booked and paid for.”

Harvey thanked him and dragged
his suitcase into the foyer.  It was aesthetically mundane, though that
mattered little to Harvey as he planned to do nothing more than sleep for the
next six hours.

*
* *

Azhar Al-Asiri threw open his
arms to welcome his young general home.

“
Salam
alaikum
!”

Abdul Mansour returned the
greeting and took a seat at the small table.  It was the first time he had
been to Al-Asiri’s home and the humble surroundings were exactly as he would
have fashioned for himself.